Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Small-town Tuesday: Afternoon bike ride

It's my goal to include little slices of life from our less-than-1000-person town. Things are different here. Life is slower. It's quirky.

It's a unique lifestyle and I'd like to share it.

I'd also like to invite anyone living in a small town to share their own stories for future installments, either by leaving a comment here or leaving a post or message on the Facebook page.

Here's the first installment.

We ride our bikes through town a lot. Some weeks every day. And we never know who we'll see.

Most times we hit our garden down at my father-in-law's old home place, then the park, sometimes get a pop on Main Street, sometimes down to the river, and usually end up going to see my mother-in-law at the other end of town.

Mostly recently, we encountered some 4th-grade school friends, both of which Brady met his very first night in this town 2 years ago. That day the girl had said some not-so-nice things about the boy.

Brady on this recent night: "Wow, I didn't know you guys were FRIENDS!"

The boy: "We're not!"

The girl: "He's going to put that frog in the storm drain!"

Boy holds up the frog in his hand, mere feet from the drain! ACK! Swift intervention was needed!

Me: "Oh honey, please don't do that. It'll die down there. It can't get out. It's one of God's creatures too, you know (he goes to our church, I thought that might help). Why don't you go put him in that ditch over there. I'll bet he'd love that."

That seemed to work as they headed off to the ditch.

No sooner did we break off from them, we ran into Brady's sitter's brother, also in 4th grade. Brady and this kid act like brothers themselves sometimes and argue. Then they usually make up by swapping their gaming devices, a Kindle for a DS. So boy, isn't it?

The kiddo rode up to us on his bike.

Me: "What are you up to tonight?"

Him, very serious: "I just finished my homework and I had to ride off all of that brain stuff."

As we ride away, Brady: "You know, he's WAY different at school than at home. At school he's very serious and stern. At home, he's just crazy!"

I love bike riding on streets that are not heavily populated! It reminds me of when I was little, that's all we used to do. Sadly, in LA, I don't have a bike because A- they get stolen very easily and B- I would most likely get hit by a car within the first 10 minutes of riding! :(

It would definitely be hard in L.A. I used to live in Salt Lake City and that would have been difficult too! Too much traffic! It is probably my most favorite thing that we do here. Thanks for stopping by :)

This is so cool. I love it. I remember watching Jessica Fletcher ride her bike through Cabot Cove on Murder She Wrote and think how nice and relaxing that would be. Stopping to chat with whoever was out and about. Easy going, friendly...LOVE it! :)

Yes! 10 minutes! That's all it takes. My inlaws live on the opposite side of town (which is nice cuz years ago we lived next door to them, that was the first time we were engaged, and it was like Everybody Loves Raymond) and it takes Brady and I 10 mins to get there, though usually longer if we stop and talk five times along the way. How small was the town you grew up in?

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I'm a Christian, mom to a spirited 8-year-old boy & work for our family business in Kansas. I've lived in a city of 1 million and now a town of less than 1,000. From the Burbs to the Boonies is about life in small-town USA, frugal living, healthy cooking, encouragement parenting, co-schooling or supplementing public school education, modern day hunting and gathering, living by faith and getting families outdoors.